Eight years after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rejected Quebec’s ban on Sikh kirpan daggers in the classroom, another major test of academic religious freedom comes to Canada’s top court Monday, as a private Catholic boys high school in Montreal fights for the right to teach ethics and religious culture in its own Jesuit style.

This time, though, legal arguments from the school, the province, and several religious intervenors from across the country, will be made in the strained climate of an election campaign dominated by Quebec’s cultural insecurity and vulnerability, epitomized in the governing Parti Québécois’ proposed Charter of Values.

“In a certain sense, the situation has become more tense,” said John Zucchi, a McGill University history professor who was a plaintiff in the original case, on behalf of his son, Thomas, then a student at Loyola High School.

The course was created by the Liberal government of former premier Jean Charest, but the PQ has magnified this tension, Mr. Zucchi said, by “pandering” to narrow interests and confusing the fundamental issues of accommodation.

The basic principles of that philosophy trivialize and, for all practical purposes, negate religious experience and belief

The basic question, as trial judge Gérard Dugré put it, is “whether the state can secularize the teaching of religion and morality within the very walls of a private Catholic denominational school.”

The answer cuts to the heart Quebec’s post-Catholic secular identity within a multicultural Canada.

First taught in 2008, Quebec’s mandatory high school course in ethics and religious culture is, as Judge Dugré wrote, “the culmination of the process of secularization of public schools undertaken by the Quebec government… in that it secularizes the teaching of ethics and religious culture.”

The course embodies a “relativistic philosophy, commonly known as ‘normative pluralism,’” the judge wrote. “The basic principles of that philosophy trivialize and, for all practical purposes, negate religious experience and belief.”

Private schools like Loyola may be exempted from teaching it, provided they offer another “equivalent” course.

Much disagreement sprung from the interpretation of that word.

In their 2008 request for exemption, the school said “our students are very well trained in the key values proposed by the new program, but that training is carried out in a manner respectful of the Catholic faith and the moral values that form the cornerstone of our school.”

The province refused, saying the Loyola program “does not lead the student to reflect on the common good, or on ethical issues, but rather to adopt the Jesuit perspective of Christian service.”

In his 2010 ruling, which quashed the province’s refusal on religious freedom grounds, Judge Dugré noted the province’s order “places Loyola in an untenable position: either it teaches the ERC program required by the Minister and thus violates its religious precepts, or it teaches the ERC course with its own program and thus violates the Act.”

THE GAZETTE / John Kenney

In December, 2012, Quebec’s Court of Appeal granted the province’s appeal, affirmed the minister’s original decision, and set the stage for this week’s Supreme Court hearing.

Michael Van Pelt, president of the Christian-focused think tank Cardus, said a key legal question is whether religious freedom is a right of an institution, not just individuals.

The answer is not clear. Judge Dugré clearly found that, as an institution, Loyola has religious freedom and it was violated. But by the letter of the law, that was something of a leap.

Both the federal Charter, and Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, say rights belong to people (“Every person” in the Quebec one, “Everyone” in the Canadian one). They do not mention institutions.

A broader concern, Mr. Van Pelt said, is whether this refusal of Quebec to allow a private Catholic school to teach ethics and religious culture from a religious perspective reflects the kind of country Canadians want to live in.

Do we want to create this kind of hesitancy among religious institutions in Canada?

A ruling against Loyola would mean any religious institution that works in the public interest would be hesitant to express its own values in Canadian public life, he said. Religious service groups, from schools to charities, regularly display a connection between deeply held beliefs and day to day actions.

“Do we want to create this kind of hesitancy among religious institutions in Canada?” Mr. Van Pelt said.

“If we have a negative judgment at the Supreme Court on this, that continuity gets broken,” he said. “This is not the kind of social architecture we want to build in this country.”

Loyola is named for Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, famous for its scholarship and intellectual engagement. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit to become Pope.

Mr. Zucchi’s son Thomas, 19, has since gone on to university, but he received the school’s preferred style of education because of the original court victory, which Mr. Zucchi said helped him prepare for the demands of higher education. But the wider problem is not resolved.

“I’m more optimistic at the Supreme Court level than I was as the [Quebec] appeal court level,” he said. “I think religious rights are taken very seriously.”